


just our hands clasped so tight waiting for the hint of a spark

by yeehawpaulson



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: A choice, Angst, F/F, Post-Canon, fluff if you squint, i kinda hate this one too, mostly canon compliant I think, the lack of dialogue in the first half was, uhm cordelias an idiot in this one, whatever
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-26 08:55:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30103473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yeehawpaulson/pseuds/yeehawpaulson
Summary: misty returns from hell and cordelia spins out of controlORin which cordelia is an emotionally incompetent idiot
Relationships: Misty Day/Cordelia Foxx | Cordelia Goode
Comments: 6
Kudos: 32





	just our hands clasped so tight waiting for the hint of a spark

**Author's Note:**

> title from i will follow you into the dark by death cab for cutie

Cordelia would never forget the feeling of Misty slipping through her fingers. Never forget the suddenness of Misty’s death as she disintegrated in her arms. The immense and overwhelming feeling of emptiness was stuck at the forefront of her brain. It filled her head, overpowered her senses, occupied her every thought until Cordelia was nothing but a walking corpse; a living reminder of Misty’s death. It was her fault. After all, it was she that pushed Misty to do the Seven Wonders. But, god, she was so sure that it was going to be her.

Days passed like molasses, sticky and dark and slow, dragging on endlessly. The weeks and months, though, shot by quickly, somehow, and Cordelia found herself running out of time. Even after searching every corner of Hell she hadn’t found Misty. Once, though, on a night where she felt particularly empty, she thought she felt her. She thought she heard Misty’s soul calling out to her, just once, to come save her, but she never seemed to get any closer. Each time she went back, Hell felt emptier, like somehow whenever she neared Misty, she would move farther and farther away. 

When Misty returned from the depths of hell, Cordelia felt her before she saw her. She felt her like a tug on the edge of her consciousness, a tiny ray of sunshine glinting in the corners of her eyes. She rushed into the foyer and laid eyes on Misty. Her tangled blonde hair formed a halo around her head, and her eyes were dim from the years of torture, but somehow still held their brightness -- an impish youthfulness that made Cordelia ache deeply in her chest.  
“Misty-” Cordelia’s voice broke.   
Cordelia didn’t know how to feel. She knew she should feel happy -- and she was -- but a small, selfish part of her was upset that the weight of the burden she felt, the pain of the past years, hadn’t disappeared when she laid eyes on Misty once again. It was strange how the sight of Misty somehow amplified all of her emotions, how her sadness felt like frozen raindrops in her chest, how her anger felt like flames licking the inside of her stomach, how yearning for Misty’s physical closeness began to feel like her need for oxygen. 

She couldn’t wrap her head around the sight before her, couldn’t fathom that Misty -- her Misty -- was standing in front of her. Cordelia felt herself pulling Misty into her arms, but really she wanted to run away from her. Cordelia wanted to put as much distance between herself and Misty as she could. Cordelia was a threat, at least as far as Misty was concerned. She couldn’t let herself get close to Misty again. She was so scared -- the visceral, mind numbing kind of fear -- that she would hurt her, so scared that she wouldn’t be able to save her again. 

Cordelia couldn’t bring herself to spend more than five minutes in Misty’s presence. Not only was Cordelia confused and conflicted, but she could also sense a flurry of negativity within Misty. So Cordelia spent the days after Misty’s return holed up in her room, admiring Misty from afar. Even though Misty was back physically, she was absent. A profound emptiness occupied Misty’s soul. Cordelia could feel her despair in between the sunshiny rays of energy radiating from her. Her soul wandered, her mind untethered, while her body remained. The worst part for Cordelia wasn’t Misty’s mental and emotional absence, but that she could feel her hurting -- a deep pain she couldn’t even begin to understand -- and couldn’t do anything to help. 

When she looked at Misty, she felt as though she was being thrown backwards -- like she was hurtling, face-up, off a cliff -- and like Misty was the only thing keeping her from free-falling to her death. Cordelia’s entire life revolved around her, even after all this time, even now that she was back. It nearly broke her to see that Misty was still in pain, still empty and lost despite her new chance at a life. Cordelia wanted to crawl into her chest and fill the empty space where her heart used to be before it was so cruelly stolen from her. She yearned to fill the aching space between Misty’s ribs and breathe the life back into her. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t even touch her. She couldn’t because she couldn’t let Misty back in after all the pain she’d caused her. 

As spring slid into summer, as the air warmed with sticky heat and the plants exhaled their final frosted breaths, Cordelia’s heart thawed. The icy threads of guilt and sorrow melted into a pool in her chest -- she traded the frigidity for a puddle of longing. Longing for Misty, for her energy, for their connection. 

Cordelia took the longing as an opportunity. She began spending her extra hours in the greenhouse, slowly reincorporating herself into Misty’s life, slowly moving closer and closer to her. Whenever she neared Misty, Cordelia felt a tug in her chest, her heartstrings being pulled towards Misty in a clumsy dance -- a back and forth that Cordelia struggled to understand. Still, she continued her efforts at reconciling with Misty. She was in this for the long haul, she couldn’t give up after letting her down so badly. 

As summer tumbled into fall and the air chilled, Cordelia half expected her depression to return -- for her chest to freeze over again in an emotional reflection of the weather -- but it didn’t. Instead, as she watched Misty layer on sweaters, watched her pad through the front door with rosy cheeks, she felt her yearning spread through her limbs and overtake her entire body. She didn’t understand this feeling, didn’t understand why she wanted, needed, to be so close to Misty. She couldn’t wrap her head around the warmth in her chest, expanding like a balloon pressing against her lungs, when Misty smiled at her. She didn’t know why Misty’s laugh made her stomach flutter and her eyes fall shut. The unfamiliarity frightened her, but she was so comforted by Misty’s presence that it didn’t matter.

It wasn’t until a late night in November, when Misty strode into the greenhouse to find Cordelia in the corner reading, that Cordelia finally had time alone with Misty.   
“Miss Delia?”   
“Misty,” she breathed, so quietly, so softly, that Misty had almost missed it.  
Cordelia couldn’t keep the smile from her lips, couldn’t stop the bubbling pressure in her chest from forcing the air out of her lungs in a gentle sigh. Misty made her way over to Cordelia’s side and placed a hand on her shoulder. It took everything within Cordelia not to gasp at the contact, at the sheer electricity that pulsed between them.   
“Whatcha readin’?”   
Misty leaned in over Cordelia’s shoulder at the book. Cordelia kept her gaze locked on the page as Misty’s breath tickled her neck and sent minute shivers down her spine. Their connection broke as Misty lifted her hand, the buzz of their energy halting abruptly. Cordelia shifted in her seat to face Misty, but she was long gone, now turned away humming gently as she tended to her plants. 

Cordelia admired Misty’s nimble hands as she carefully turned over leaves and rearranged pots and watered each plant with care. Something within her churned. A warm thrum spread across her skin as she watched Misty’s slim frame shift back and forth to the beat of whatever song she was humming. She wanted to reach out and touch the blonde hair that rested on Misty’s back, wanted to breathe in the scent of whatever shampoo she smelled earlier. She’d never felt this way about anyone before, she thought maybe it was her soul seeking Misty’s explicit forgiveness for her ignorance. 

“Misty?”   
Misty looked over her shoulder at Cordelia. She couldn’t see her eyes, but she could feel them like a flame as they raked down her body.   
“Yeah, Delia?”   
She flushed, although she didn’t know why, when she felt Misty’s eyes stop at her lips, and wondered if she was making it up. Maybe her powers were reacting with Misty’s in strange ways.  
“How are you doing?”   
She hadn’t really intended to ask her that. She honestly hadn’t even had a question in mind, she just wanted to feel Misty’s name on her lips, feel it roll across her tongue. Misty turned completely around and made eye contact with Cordelia.  
“I’m fine, I s’pose,” she shrugged.  
Cordelia didn’t miss the way her eyes shifted to the ground, the way she seemed to shrink in on herself. Cordelia hummed in response and felt the air around her ondulate with Misty’s untethered power. 

Misty had always had that effect. She could command a room simply by standing in it. Everyone could feel her coming. Cordelia was convinced, though, that few people could actually read it. Cordelia seemed to be able to reach into the waves of energy and understand Misty at her core. She knew Misty wasn’t okay. She knew Misty was hurting, but she didn’t know why. 

“Are you sure?”   
Misty’s eyes darted back up to meet Cordelia’s. Misty sighed deeply, her face scrunching into a charmingly unattractive grimace,  
“Yes?”   
Cordelia chuckled, and Misty followed suit. Soon, they had both collapsed into a fit of giggles. Misty was leaning on Cordelia’s shoulder again, this time bracing her body against the uncontrollable laughter that spilled out of her. Misty’s laugh sounded like how Cordelia felt when she was high (that one time when she found Myrtle’s weed when she was 17). It was perfectly content and made Cordelia feel like she was floating on pure bliss. She wanted to bottle it and drown in it. 

Somehow, Misty’s bubbly laughter turned into tears, and eventually Cordelia was cradling her head, stroking her hair and cooing. She’d never done this with anyone before. Even as headmistress, none of her girls had ever needed her. There was always somebody else -- a better teacher, a better friend, a better person. She was never enough for anyone. 

“Delia, I feel so empty,” Misty sobbed.  
“I know,”  
Misty looked at her expectantly, and Cordelia was momentarily confused as to what she was waiting for, but then realized that Misty might not even realize she projected her powers like she did.   
“I can feel it,”   
Misty furrowed her eyebrows (which made her nose scrunch, sending a flurry of butterflies coursing through Cordelia’s stomach).   
“Your powers, they, uh,” Cordelia swallowed, “reach out sometimes. To me,” she explained, “I can feel your pain.” 

Misty stood and paced along the length of the table a few times.   
“Misty,” Cordelia tried, “I didn’t want to intrude. I didn’t know what to do.”   
Misty leaned back against the table, wiped the leftover tears from her cheeks, and crossed her arms across her chest. She looked so nonchalant, so comfortable despite the weight the conversation should have had.   
“I feel like,” Misty began, taking a deep breath, “There’s a hole in my chest. Like there’s a pit that I can’t fill... I’m broken,” she finished with a tired sigh.   
Cordelia wanted to stand up and take Misty in her arms again, but she felt as though it was too late for that. She was too late (for what, she didn’t know, but it was something). 

Misty shrugged again.   
“But I’m fine, Delia, I promise. It’ll go away. I spent two years down there. It’s gonna take a lot more than six months for me t’ feel normal again.”   
Cordelia nodded silently. Maybe Misty was right, maybe she was just healing. Maybe Cordelia didn’t need to be so careful around her. 

“Can I tell ya a secret, Delia?” Misty asked, face bright once again. “I can feel yours, too,” she said, her eyes twinkling as a smile spread across her face.   
Misty turned and skipped out of the greenhouse, leaving Cordelia reeling at how quickly their conversation had shifted, at how strangely Misty’s energy seemed to affect her. Misty could feel her, too, and Cordelia didn’t know what it meant. She thought it was a one way street, but their powers seemed to be connected on a level she couldn’t understand. 

In the weeks that followed, Cordelia spent almost all of her time with Misty. They cooked the coven’s dinners together, took trips into town together, and spent every moment in between huddled together in hushed conversation. Cordelia constantly felt high on Misty’s energy, and at night when they were apart she felt infinitely empty, as if Misty was the only thing that kept her breathing. The way she felt around Misty was almost identical to how love was described in a fairytale, except she wasn’t in love with Misty. Cordelia found it almost comical that their powers exaggerated emotions to such a degree that she couldn’t describe them with actual, real, descriptions of feelings. 

Cordelia came close to finding the words, though, one night when she sat beside Misty around the fireplace after dinner. They were sharing a blanket, but they didn’t need it. Their legs had tangled into each other, creating enough of a buzz between them to warm the entire room (if they’d wanted to of course). The steady rumble of the fire in the hearth was drowned out by the sounds of conversations and staccatoed laughter around the room. But Cordelia couldn’t hear them, though she knew they were there. She was so focused on how Misty’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled and the feeling of her body near hers. Her heart ached to reach out and pull Misty in closer, ached to feel the curve of Misty’s body against her own. 

Cordelia was grateful she’d allowed herself to get close to Misty again. Without her unyielding friendship, Cordelia wasn’t so sure she’d have been able to survive her crippling emotions and uncertainty. She reached out and tucked a strand of bouncy blonde hair behind Misty’s ear. She saw Misty shiver as goosebumps darted down her neck. She pulled her hand away quickly so as not to startle her any further, but, to her surprise, Misty reached out and took her hand. Cordelia stared at their hands. They fit each other so easily, so perfectly that she could have laughed. She finally met Misty’s gaze. Her brown eyes met Misty’s clear blue, and Cordelia felt like she was swimming in a sea of comfort. In that moment, she settled on comfortable as the best word to describe her relationship with Misty -- comfort like hot chocolate on a cold day, like a hug when you’re past the point of exhaustion. 

She would have sat there for hours just basking in the glow of the fire and feeling the push and pull of her and Misty’s powers, but she eventually stood. The abrupt parting of their bodies made Misty whine (a sound Cordelia had never heard from her before) and flush red almost immediately, and made Cordelia feel funny all over -- like all her joints were made of jelly. Misty murmured a goodbye and turned away, a barely hidden pout crossing her face. Cordelia briefly wondered how much she’d had to drink (she’d never seen Misty act this way), but pushed the thought out of her mind, she wasn’t in charge of Misty. 

She made her way to her room slowly, busy in her head thinking about how soothing it was to be near Misty. She absentmindedly changed and crawled into bed, all the while remembering how nice Misty’s hand had felt. God, how much have I had to drink? She wondered, turning over on her pillow. She yawned and then startled as Misty peeked her head in the door,  
“Delia?” she whispered sharply.   
“Misty?” she asked, even though Misty was the only one who called her that.  
“Come here.”  
Cordelia reached her hand out and Misty shuffled over to the side of the bed and took it in both of hers. Cordelia sighed at the contact, smiled gently at the immediate thrum on her skin.   
“What do you need, honey?” she tried, noticing Misty’s distanced, glazed over expression.   
“Oh, I, uh… I had somethin’ t’ tell ya, but it’s not important,”   
“Well obviously it is important if you needed to come in here this late to tell me,” Cordelia pressed in response.   
A sheepish look crossed Misty’s face, but she couldn’t turn away because Cordelia had moved her free hand to cup her cheek, effectively sitting herself up in bed. Misty sighed deeply,  
“I jus’,” she began, eyes welling up with tears, “I love you so much Delia,”   
Cordelia was confused. They’d said I love you countless times since Misty returned. What changed? 

Obviously her confusion registered on her face, because Misty started backing away from the bed. Cordelia didn’t let go of her hand.   
“See? Not important,” she said in between quiet sniffles.   
“No, Misty, that can’t be what you came up here to say,”  
“It was, though, an’ it’s okay, Delia. I get it.”   
Get what? Cordelia wondered.   
“Mist-” she started.  
“No, Cordelia, actually. I don’ get it,” Misty interrupted.   
Cordelia flinched at the use of her full name. Misty stepped back towards the bed and dropped Cordelia’s hand.   
“I don’t understand how you can sit there an’ tell me that ya love me and hold my hand and constantly be with me and still be so blind!”   
Misty screwed her mouth shut, but Cordelia could tell she wasn’t finished.  
“Delia, I’m so in love with ya, so much that it hurts, an’ I need ya t’ tell me straight up if ya even give a shit about me, cuz I’m startin’ t’ feel like ya don’t.”   
Tears started running down Misty’s cheeks. Cordelia reached out to wipe them away, but Misty cringed out of her reach. 

Cordelia wasn’t sure where it came from, but suddenly she was overcome with emotion. She jumped out of bed and stood in front of Misty. She took Misty’s hands in hers and started speaking,  
“Misty, hey, hey, I love you, too.”   
Misty’s eyes snapped up to hers. They were more blue now that she’d been crying, and Cordelia wanted to drown in their depths.   
“I, uh, I’m in love with you, Misty,” she said quietly, as if she was trying the words on for size. She hadn’t known she felt this way, but Misty’s confession had broken a dam within Cordelia, and suddenly she couldn’t stop the words from falling from her lips.   
“I love you so much, Misty. I love you. So much that it hurts me to look at you, so much that I can’t stand to be away from you.”   
The raw, unadulterated adoration she felt for Misty had always been overwhelming, yet somehow with Misty right there it all made sense. Her entire life was brought into perspective. All the things she’d done because of Misty, all the things she felt, they all made sense. She was in love with Misty. 

Before Cordelia could even begin to form a cohesive thought that wasn’t Oh my god I’m in love with Misty, Misty had taken her face in her hands. She was running her thumb over Cordelia’s lips and cradling her cheeks so gently and carefully that Cordelia could have screamed. It was so perfect. It was so right. 

And then Misty’s lips were on Cordelia’s. And then Misty’s tongue was swiping across Cordelia’s bottom lip. And then Cordelia was kissing her back. And it was just them, their lips, their tongues, their teeth. The backs of Cordelia’s eyelids were made of fireworks, every synapse in her brain was firing at full capacity -- she’d never felt so alive as she did in that moment. Misty tasted like vanilla and bourbon, she tasted like home. She needed to be impossibly closer to Misty, so close that they breathed the same air, pumped the same blood. Cordelia wanted to crawl into her chest and live there, she wanted to be her beating heart and the air in her lungs. She realized that Misty was her missing piece. Misty was the only thing that could fill her empty soul and awaken her from a lifetime of hibernation.

Misty was the one to break away. Cordelia watched her teary eyes scan her face, landing on her lips, tracing their curve. Cordelia took one of her hands and tugged her gently towards her bed, and eventually into it.   
“Hold me?” Cordelia asked.   
“Always,” Misty breathed, “I love you.”   
“And I love you.”

**Author's Note:**

> what even is the end im so sorry i just plink-plonk-posted this is uhhhh


End file.
